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eirikrjs · 9 days

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Blaze's Compendium entry #1: Dormarth- The Celtic hound

In most of sources, Dormarth is described as some kind of ''Cerberus'' of Celtic Folklore, being described as a guard dog of the gates of underworld on those cultures. And also in most sources, Dormarth's name is referred as meaning ''Death's Door''. This was also replicated in her Shin Megami Tensei appearance.

However, a superficial research into this creature always reveals that it is also called by another names such as ''Dormach'' and ''Dormarch'', and it's more often than not, treated as a hunting dog of sorts.

Speaking into the context of Welsh mythology and folk tales, it's said that the underworld has a king, called Gwynn Ap Nudd. He supposed owns a beast called Dormarch/Dormarth, that follows him during hunts. Specifically, his hunts for lost souls. (See Below the connection to the concept of Wild Hunt).

Gwynn is a very important figure when talking about Dormarth, since this mythical being is closely associated with the later. The so called ''King of Underworld'' is also associated to the concept of Wild Hunt, which is a common sight in European cultures. Famous examples include the Nordic Wild Hunt, with Odin presiding over it. In most of the depictions of the phenomena, hunting dogs are with it. Gwynn's Wild Hunt was no exception.

*It's also worthy to note that, i have focused my efforts on researching Dormarth, and have not gone deep into Gwynn's lore. I will probably do it later as another entry in my compendium series.

It's said in the Black Book of Camarthen, that Gwynn obtained Dormarth from the legendary King Maelgwn Gwynedd. The later really existed, but gained a mythic status in Celtic history. The figure lies buried in Puffin Island, UK.

The Black Book of Camarthen describes Dormarth as a beast with two front legs, only one head, and a tail that has 3 ends. There's no mention of lower legs, or other heads like a Cerberus would have.

To better understand Dormarth's discription and meaning, we have to go back to the first apparition of this creature, in the said Book of Camarthen. It's a 13th century Welsh book, that details poems, legends and folk tales from Wales. It was re released in 1906, and the original was scanned in 2002 and archived online for public view.

Read online

To my knowledge, that's Dormarth oldest written account. The book by itself contains a lot of contents from the time, and i was very interested to keep going with it, but for the topic at hand its already a very satisfactory base. In case you are curious, the 1906 version from J. Evans is available to buy and read online as well!

With the 1906 version as a base, Dormarth the modern author inserts some of his interpretations, and describes Dormarth less as a dog, and more as a sea creature, like a whale. Some authors associate that to the Christianity becoming more and more popular in the region at the time. Although, i could not find any credible sources or reasons to link the facts. Some say that Dormarth was associated to the biblical tale of Jonah and the Whale, which... I don´t really know why. The biggest theory is because, in this newer version, Dormarth is drawn like a whale of sorts (?). That would, in theory, suggest the old 13th century tale was being now interpreted by 20th century Christians. Evans was a christian by a matter of fact, so i can see why this theory exists, but for me its a kinda of stretch. Probably has more to do with his own interpretation of the creature. (Even thought Dormarth is clearly a dog...)

But what about our Fantastical Hound? What does the old texts says about it?

Surprisingly... Not much!

According to the Black Book of Camarthen, Dormarth supposedly inhabits the ''Ar Wybir'' which literally means ''mounting in the clouds.'' -Specifically the ones surrounding mountains. We can presume that's their ''natural habitat''. This also could mean Dormarth manipulates winds, and can fly.

In the book, Gwynn meets the king Gwyddno from Cantre'r Gwaelod (which, by the way has a really interesting tale) an old mythical land that supposedly sank in the ocean just like Atlantis.

At this meeting, there's a dialogue where Gwynn presents his hound, Dormarth. The owner of such creature praises its features, and talks about its role in the Wild Hunt. At the later, Gwynn collected the soul of his fallen soldiers with the help of his hunting dogs, such as Dormarth, which he praised as his best dog. (Good boy, or girl!)

Here's a small part of that poem:

"Handsome my dog, and round bodied, And truly the best of dogs; Dormath was he, which belonged to Maelgwyn. Dormath with the ruddy nose! what a gazer Thou art upon me because I notice Thy wanderings on Gwibir Vynyd."

-Black Book of Camarthen, 13th century

To better understand this fantastical Welsh creatures, we need to be presented to the concept of the Cwn Annwn, this translates itself to simply ''Hounds of Annwn. This said Annwn is another type of netherworld, another dimension, or plane. It's been seen in other traditional Welsh works, such as Maginobion which is a collection of folk tales and texts. This plane is also associated strongly with Gwynn Ap Nudd, since he is the king of the netherworld, mytical beings, fantastical creatures and this kind of stuff.

I need to bring the Cwn Annwn to the topic, because they were strongly associated with the Hild Hunt themselve, being the literal dogs that hunt down souls at this phenomena. We can thereby, conclude that Dormarth is indeed one of the Cwn Annwn, but a notorious one.

The Cwn Annwn also had other duties, such as carry the souls of the dead on their journeys to the after life. (Its often interesting to me how many cultures regards dogs as companions to lost souls, trying to reach heaven, or just guarding heaven. I can think about the Aztec dog of Xolotl, Cerberus, and many other instances.) At the Wild Hunt, they also had the duty to pursue criminals, until they could not run anymore. This is the modern depiction of the Wild Hunt hunting criminals, where before the Christians came, they would hunt anyone! The Christians probably were not satisfied by the idea of the righteous average christian running the risk of being hunt down by a demonic dog, so they nerfed it.

The author John Rhys comments also on the idea that Christianity changed the way Gwyn's Wild Hunt worked, where before Gwynn would hunt any dead soul, now the Wild Hunt was believed to hunt only criminals.

''What Gwynn hunts, is the soul of the dead. But Christianity has narrowed his field a lot, now he only hunts criminals.''

-Rhys on the Christian influency on this old Celtic myth, around page 156 of Studies in Arthurian Legends, 1891.

Note: The British Islands had a lot of Wild Hunt folklore. Actually, Europe had it in general, it was a trope. And hounds were also a common theme. There's cases you can read about from the entirety of the continent, and maybe one day i can bring the Wild Hunt to our compendium, there's a lot of material!

Coming back to Dormarth, since she's not going anywhere here. She's described specifically as a hunter dog helping Gwynn, in what one can only suppose it's the Wild Hunt. Still, at the 1906 version of the Black Book of Camarthen, page 97, there's a drawing of Dormarth. The creature is present in the pages 13 and 14 of the original manuscript, which can also be read online.

That's... Nothing like what Kaneko drew...

The interesting part about Dormarth it's not their features, nor their powers, as with some mythical creatures, but the etymology of its name...

You see, the real origins and meanings of the name Dormarth are uncertain. If you research by your own, you see some people call it Dormarth, while others call it Dormarch, as said earlier. This is because the original work had a bit of paint in the last letters, or it just eroded with time. If you read it as Dormarth, it means something like ''Death's door''. However there's evidence the name was actually written as Dormarch.

I will talk more about the creature's name in a bit. You just need to know now, that over the internet, books, and many sources, usually this being is named either Dormarch or Dormarth. For the scholars of the Breton language, you can notice that Dor= Door, and March = ...horse. Yeah, i will address that eventually, keep reading.

Evidently, if you look deep down into books and overall sources, there's no legend of Dormarth as a guard dog. It's never told for us that Dormarth is one, but still many modern media portray Dormarth as such. Even at her mentions in the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, most of its compendium entries describes her like that.

There's also a lot of online articles connecting Dormarth to the Irish Goddess Callieach. Where most of the times being also depicted as a guard dog, but being side by side with said goddess. This also has no backing from anywhere, there's no citation -as far as i know and had researched- that put those two together.

Talking about it's academics sources, Dormarth is only born and mostly portrayed in Welsh mythology and folkloric literature. But Callieach as mentioned it's an Irish goddess (Albeit sometimes appearing in Welsh and Manx mythology as well) ,and was never present in the works where Dormarth was. Again, as far as my research has gone.

Callieach is a goddess of the winter, also associated with landscape and nature. There's few and almost no room to put a Guard dog of the underworld near her, but i don't eliminate the idea of word of mouth doing this, and being less recorded. Just a theory of mine thought, because i could not find any sources on where this association with this goddess has begun for Dormarth.

It's widely known that Celtic mythology spreads itself by all the Britanic islands, and their ages vary a lot. I could locate Callieach being recorded mentioned at a 8th century poem, but as far as i researched there was again, no mention of Dormarth. It's clear now, that this association has no backing, and it's mostly a misinterpretation of Celtic culture.

*I got curious on where Atlus and most of modern depictions of Dormarth took this idea of it being sided with Callieach, and after an extensive search, i found a 2004 post at Deviantart that make this exact association, and it was the oldest i could get. Since Dormarth first appearance at SMT was from the Raidou novel, in 2007-8, maybe Kaneko got his idea from here? I dont know...

In the book ''Celtic Folklore, Welsh, and Manx'' by Jhon Rhys written in 1901, at page 216 Dormarth is cited by the author, who is pondering if the creature is indeed a Cwn Annwn. Rhys was a very interesting author, because he actually went to research personally, and collected local testimonies and tales from ordinary people. Here it's no diferent, and he tells about a local tale of a business man, that had the unlucky fate of being a town attacked by the so called Cwn Annwn. In this report, Dormarth is not cited directly, but the creature itself is at the glossary in the last pages of the book as well.

At this point deep in the study of this creature, i was a bit walking around in circles, because everything went to dead ends, and my lack of knowledge in Celtic languages certainly did not help me. I've found that some people online really theorized that the interpretation of Welsh myths could really trip over to Ireland, for example and be slightly different, and not very well recorded. This could in theory explain the discrepancies in the descriptions of the creature.

Dormarth is also present in the 1905 book: ''Celtic Myth and Legend'' by Charles Squire. Squire is a very known author from the 20th century, and wrote this very huge and detailed collection of Celtic Mythology. Some things in the book did not aged well, but in the most part is a very usefull book.

Squire cites the poem from the Black Book of Camarthen, which i exhaustively read and talked about here. But, in the bibliography section of the book, you can see where Squire found Dormarth in the first place. It was in a book called ''Studies in Arthurian Legends'', Written in 1891 by John Rhys (You again!).

Time to raise an eyebrow and ask yourself what in the world is Dormarth doing in an academic study of the King Arthur legends? Well, around the page 150ish, Rhys is lecturing us about a poem about Lancelott and Elayne. (The book its available online in its entirety, go check it out if you want to.) In this poem, we are told about the time Lancelott goes to a tournament with the other knights of the Round Table, where a young woman falls in love with him, only to be rejected and later committing suicide. The tale by itself it's interesting, but there's the part that really interests our text, that is the woman's mysterious father.

Rhys explains that her father was a weird man, that was always by a well, described himself as ''King of the Islands'', and devoted himself so much to this title, that according to Rhys reflection, he could not save his own daughter from suicide.

However, what concerns us the most here is that the man was described being always accompanied by some ''beast''. The man stated that this beast belonged to him, and only him and his descendants. The creature was only described this way, as a ''beast''. And supposedly had a powerful roar.

The poem in question was written by Thomas Malory (1405-1475). Malory is important for this research, because of many things, but specifically because of its place on time and space.

He was an English romanticist, living during the 15th century and wrote mainly about King Arthur. His works were based on Gaulish books from the 13th century. He knew much about the folklore and myths of that age.

Back to the poem of Lancelott, the father of the young woman had his own history with King Arthur. The man was keen on fighting Arthur, and had the habit to take away the horses of the knights he defeated. He waited Arthur at his well, with his beast, in hopes to duel with him.

Here, Rhys does his connection with Dormarth:

Malory tells that the beast roared with the strength of 30 hounds. Rhys reflects that maybe Malory was referencing some kind of guard dog with 3 heads, just like Cerberus. It's also cited during this reflection, other mythical dogs from around Europe -page 156-, but ultimately he traces a parallel with the nearest culture, the Welsh.

Rhys interpreted that the figure being the father of Ellayne, is actually a Breton version of Gwyn App Nudd (!!!)

As said before, in his other book from 1901, Rhys tells us more about this modern depiction of Gwynn's Wild Hunt. He even writes about hearing it personally from townsfolk in Cardiganshare.

Gwynn then take us back to the 13th century Black Book of Camarthen. (Notice that Malory was notorious for consuming 13th century works!) Here, back to the original welsh depiction of Dormarth, Rhys explains the problem with the name Dormarth. There's something erased from it in the original book, where it's written Dormach, instead.

Rhys theory on why Dormarth is written with march, and also erased, it's because the original scribe must have been instructed to write it as Dormarth, but ended up writing it as Dormarch. As said before, Dor= door, but March means horse. This probably confused anyone in charge of finishing the book, which made the decision to erase the ''R''. This creates a name with no meaning, thus solving the typo. Still, Rhys assure us it must have been instructed to write it as Dormarth. And he is probably the first author that does that.

But again, if you know the Breton language, you know that ''marth'' is not death. It instead is ''marv''. But Rhys explains that as well: In the also from the 13th century ''Book of Taliessin'' (not to confuse with the Deep Purple album), there's a poem about death, where it's mentioned as ''Marth'', not marv. The academics of the time deduced that Marth is death personified, a way to name Death itself. Rhys supports this idea by the etymology of the word, for example, starting from Latin:

-Mors > mortis > morte>marv>marth

By this idea, Dormarth is had as the personified death at the door of Annwn. To support even more this claim, Rhys describes old sayings from south Cardiganshare, where death was often described as a dog's mouth.

Going even further, Rhys proposes that maybe even English modern expressions like ''in the maws of death''. Or the german expression ''Rachen des Toden'' originated from here.

Rhys concludes:

''Its by this way, that one seeks to understand and the meaning of Dormarth.''

Here is where Dormarth as a guard dog originated. But as a guard dog of Gwynn App Nudd and his domain, not Callieach. At the same book from John Rhys, he also tells us that the Welsh believe that Gynn's hounds are led by a way bigger and fearsome one.

''He's bigger, louder, hunts at night, floating sometimes silently, sometimes devouring a victim that screams.''- Page 158.

So... Let's finish with Dormarth's resume:

Dormarth is one of the hounds of Anwnn, and Gwynn App Nudd in Welsh mythology. Due a gramatical error, its true name its hard to decipher, but it's clearly depicted as the hound that leads Gwynn's wild hunt and probably guards the gates of Annwn. It is the death at Annwn's door for anyone who shall approach.

Sources:

-Black Book of Camarthen (reprint and 13th century version)

-Celtic Folklore, Welsh and Manx - John Rhys

-Celtic Myth and Legend - Squire, Studies in Arthurian Legends - John Rhys.

#celtic mythology #welsh mythology #devil summoner #kazuma kaneko #Dormarth

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eirikrjs · 11 days

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Excellent work!

Explaining the Origin of Megaten demons: ShikiOuji

I am sure that, if you played any Megaten game in the last 20 years or so, you ended up seeing this paper dude. His name is always stated as Shiki-Ouji, and he once shared the same design with the Demon called Shikigami.

The weird thing is that when researching Shikigami on my studies, i never found anything about this one so i put some detective work to find out about the origins of Shikiouji, the (yet another) dude who oftens repel physical damage in Megaten.

The creature is often describes in the series compendium as a powerful Shikigami, that only the most powerful Onmyoji could summon, and they have a vicious temperament.

When we talk about Shikigami, the first thing that comes to mind are paper dolls. This is no surprise, since Shikigami are summons Onmyoji binds to paper dolls or talismans, so they could interact with the physical world. This is also because paper is a very easy material to destroy, if things go south. Onmyoji are the equivalent of western sorcerer, that followed the Onmyōdō, a esoteric cosmology. It started in the 6th century in Japan as a divination practice, and evolved from there. I won't go into detail, because this is meant to be a short post. But materials about this practice are abundant on the internet.

The main concept concerning us here is the Shikigami. These are basically some kind of familiar, a spirit or demon if you want, the sorcerer could conjure to protect him or do his biding. The Cultural Alliance Brazil- Japan, which i already mentioned in other posts, states that:

''Shikigami can be Oni or demons, that should serve and protect an Onmyoji. Your abilities would be determined by the abilities of his master.

A Shikigami could assume the form of small animals, birds, etc... One Shikigami from a powerful Onmyoji could possess and control one animal. But only a real powerful Shikigami could possess a person.

When an Onmyoji is fighting another Onmyoji, they employ the use of their Shikigami. Some Onmyoji could spot the enemy Shikigami beforehand, and try to convert it to his side with magical powers. In this game, the converted Shikigami would come back to the old master, and attack with double the force. This pratice was called Shikigami Gaeshi.

Abe no Seimei is said to be the most powerful Onmyoji to ever exist. Some rumors say he had twelve Shikigami, while regular Onmyoji would rarely have more than one Shikigami at the same time.''

So, that is a rough definition of what a Shikigami is.

But, when researching this creature you would not be able to regularly find Shiki-ouji. The fastest method for him to appear, was the English Wikipedia article about Shikigami, which weirdly had this part about Shiki-ouji, but offered no source to it:

Having the kanji to Shikiouji, and some keywords, i found someone at Tumblr who asked the same question 6 years ago, in Eirikr's blog.

From there, Eirikr offered a link to a blog post writing about Izanagi Ryu Shikoku. Ryu Shikoku is an ancient folk religion and pratices from the Kochi prefecture. It is still practiced in the area to this day!

In this belief system there is the tradition of the Shiki-kui masks. Which.. bear a very uncanny resemblance to our paper guy, subject to this post:

These masks would be hang above the place the ceremonies of the Izanagi Ryu take place. They would have magical powers that could repel evil spirits, and non believers from coming to the ceremony and disturbing it. They would also serve as talismans, or paper dolls, in a simmilar vein the regular Shikigami pop image you have in mind.

Since they are used to summon spirits, bind them, and as talismans, these creatures can be, technically called a Shikigami.

With this knowledge in hands, i went to the Japanese web. And sure enough, i found this site: The Nippon Foundation Library. It has an article detailing the paper talismans used by Izanagi No Ryu Onmyoji, and their meanings, powers, and also explained a bit about Shiki-Ouji!

Here is what they have to say: (Please be warned that i do not speak Japanese, and used machine translation. Any corrections are Welcome!)

Shikē Ōji… Shikē Ōji is a spiritual entity invoked by the taisa during prayers for the sick and the "toriwake" ritual to expel evil spirits causing illness or calamity. Its birth is described as abnormal, and due to its excessively violent power, it has no place to reside. Usually, it is sunk in the pond of Tendō-nanta, and summoned only when needed to guard ceremonies, to pray as the guardian deity of ceremonies, or as a prayer deity of Jumon no hakase. There seem to be several types of Shikē Ōji depending on their purpose, such as Takata no Ōji for toriwake, Gotai no Ōji for prayers for the sick, and Ōtaka-shiki for insect prayers. Additionally, talismans such as Sangoku Arashiki, Chimura San Ōji, and Sakago no Ōji are handed down, and it is inferred that they were used according to the content of the prayers, although many details of their usage are unknown.

Using the powerful Shikē Ōji against humans becomes a curse. In Kochi Prefecture, "hitting a ceremony" is widely used to curse people. Many people use this term without understanding its original meaning. "Hitting a ceremony" refers to attacking someone using Shikē Ōji. While Shikē Ōji can benefit people if used for good, it can harm them if used for evil. Talismans of Shikē Ōji, possessing such terrifying power, often have several incisions on them, each containing twelve notches, giving them a rough impression. However, unlike talismans found in mountains and rivers, they do not seem to have incisions for eyes or mouths. In this regard, they are closer to the cutting style of talismans for house gods and sacred gods. Here, one can sense the emphasis on the powerful nature of Shikē Ōji's talismans while also distinguishing them from strange monsters.

So, as you can see there is some key information about the creature here. But the most important ones:

1- It is bind to a talisman, just like other Shikigami. The text here explains it is a paper talisman with notches, just like regular ones used in religious ceremonies.

2-It has a powerful and violent nature, just like the compendium often indicates in Megaten games. It seems hard to tame and use properly without getting hurt.

3-Shiki-Ouji can be powerful and violent, but it seems they dislike being used to hurt people. Instead, they are better employed to use their magic to other deeds. However if you still use them in that regard, they will most likely curse you.

4-Their talismans have twelve notches, no incision for eyes and mouth due to their aggressive nature.

I am sure that, if we follow this trail we will find many more sources. Going by key words i found in this text, i found many other sites and books, but since i have no time now to fall a rabbit hole, nor do i speak Japanese... That is it, i think this is a satisfactory answer to where this Megaten Demon came from!

The real forms of Shiki-Ouji

The last thing in want to talk about, is Shiki-Ouji real appearance. Since we have a seemingly wrong impression of they in Megaten, since Kaneko took some artistic freedoms.

First and foremost: From the few things i studies about Shikigami, we know they do not have a real physical form. The paper talismans are just a way to give them physical form. But it was incredibly hard to find a Shiki-Ouji talisman, which was weird because it was so distinguishable. The main reason being that: Shiki-Ouji seems not to be believed to be easy or safe to summon, and also their talismans would be destroyed asap after use.

But with the description i got, it would be this one that matches it the most:

No eyes, or mouth. Twelve Notches, six from each side, and some incisions. Very similar to a regular talisman found in other types of ceremony. Just as the text suggested.

I got this picture from this book:

Tosa, Monobe Village: Shapes of the Gods

Monoba being the village where most of these rituals came from. The book is from 1999, and contains many pictures of actual talismans.

You can see that, aside from the head shape, Kaneko took some freedom with this design. The sources state that Shikiouji talismans should not have a face, nor limbs, since it was too powerful, and should have 12 notches. For some reason, Kaneko drew it in a human-like form, but the face still resembled the Shiki-kui masks. The earlier design of the demon was even more closely resembling the masks:

Shiki-ouji earlier design from Devil Summoner (1996). It was later repurposed as the demon Shikigami. It is almost an exact match to this talisman. I can not however identify the original source.

Shiki-Ouji current design by itself could have been based on this one talisman in specific, at least some parts of it like the head with horned-shaped appendages:

It was sourced by the National Museum of Japanese History, but the post went down. The low quality image of the talisman can still be seen on google, but the link is dead, unfortunately. It seems that this item is in possession of the Museum in Japan. Kaneko could have seen it in pictures, or in person. This one seems NOT to be displaying a Shiki-Ouji thought.

Maybe the Kaneko take is that Shiki-Ouji was summoned with limbs, and facial features and became much more stronger as a result? We may never know...

And finally there is also an occult book that i found in Amazon Japan that is called: Exploring Izanagi No Ryu: ShikiOuji.

It is supposedly a manual on how to practice Izanagi no Ryu, and magics. I could not find the book online, just the summary. But it mentioned nothing about Shiki-Ouji. Probably has some sort of tutorial to summon it, in fact i was able to find many of those tutorials on the Japanese web.

Now, that is it. I think this puts to rest a little bit of mystery involving the origins of this specific demon. Kaneko sure took some freedoms, but it is still one of the more popular and recognizable characters in the series.

Final considerations:

This most likely is the answer to its origin, but i am not some sort of owner of all truths, so feel free to correct me in anything i said wrong. I am still an amateur scholar, and even if i do know a lot about mythology and ancient religions because i read many books and study a lot of hours of my days, i am by no means a specialist in Japanese Mythology specifically, specially Shikigami practices. The reason is that, i find it very difficult and time consuming to research Japanese sources, since i do not speak Japanese. I will one day, try my best since there are a lot of good Yokai to cover in future Scientific Papers.

I can, however, guarantee that i did my best in a deep search!

And i have spent a lot of time looking through pictures of Shikigami talismans, and i found some really cute. Like this one. What a whimsical little fella...

#shin megami tensei #kazuma kaneko #atlus #blazescompendium #megaten #mythology #japanese folklore #japanese mythology #shikigami #megami tensei #smt

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